Conclusion:
Bikers as Not-A-Citizen
There’s a clarity to the road. Even the bad guys are pure. (1)
This analysis of the media’s representation of outlaw motorcycle clubs and bikers purposely includes only a sampling of media, genres and texts. A number of fertile genres were sacrificed for various reasons. Literature aimed at adolescents and Harlequin–style romances, for example, are two fiction genres which hold out promise because of the biker myth’s inherent ability to represent danger, delinquency and misadventure. Television and radio news broadcasts, like printed news media, have dutifully reported the illegal and immoral activities of one–percenters and outlaw clubs. A more in–depth look at advertising would likewise turn up interesting examples of the myth’s ability to establish meaning in audience members who have no direct experience of outlaw culture.
But would additional genres have offered additional perspectives on the development and evolution of the myth? Probably not. There is a clarity to the myth which provides it a singular utility. Bikers and one–percenters carry with them a reputation for toughness, independence, and freedom of movement. They do not bring to mind images of morally upright citizens with two kids, a dog and a house in the suburbs. And considering how little the media’s array of frameworks for bikers and one–percenters changed in 50 years, it is clear that any image which strayed too far from the norm would have had no meaning to an audience weaned on The Wild One and The Wild Angels, and therefore would not have been useful or appropriate. Just as in those genres that were analyzed, any change in the use and presentation of the biker myth by other media would have been likely a matter of degree.
The frameworks for representing bikers and outlaw clubs, across genres, are quite similar. That is partly the nature of myth. For an audience to interpret the message correctly there has to be some amount of consensus as to what it can mean. In other words, there are built–in limits to what any genre is allowed to do with a particular myth. But the similarity also has much to do with a lack of knowledge about outlaw clubs. They are closed to all but the chosen few, and the only time they attract attention is when their actions cross ill–defined social and moral boundaries. Without broad knowledge or experience, the media depend on information accumulated from law enforcement agencies and other sources to explain and interpret club behavior. Not coincidentally, those other sources may also include previous news reports or such ubiquitous texts as Hunter Thompson’s Hell’s Angels, a brace of unlikely yet popular “B” movies, and the time–worn details of riots and rape allegations.
In 1997 the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club was once again the object of international media attention as it established new chapters in Sweden and Denmark. The move prompted a “turf war” between the Angels and the Bandidos MC over drug markets. Elements of a page one New York Times story reporting the incisive actions of a multinational police force sound familiar in the way they describe the club’s existence and the biker lifestyle. The Angels’ clubhouse is a “shack,” and they celebrate their newest chapter with “rivers of beer.” One particularly surly biker, described as bearded, tattooed and abrupt, chafes under the “suffocating police surveillance.” Equally familiar is the reported success of law enforcement’s crackdown: “The normally liberal, courteous Swedish police made sure the 250 to 300 international members of the brotherhood, as the Angels refer to themselves, had a miserable time.” (2)
But new components have been added to the newspaper’s reporting of the 1997 version of Angel activities. The article suggests little of the furor and indignation of previous decades’ reports. Despite the “cycle of attacks and revenge” inflicted on the residents of Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm, the headline notes “Police Spoil Hell’s Angels Party.” The story does describe the escalation of violence, the array of weapons employed and the number of “civilians” injured in the war, but the club’s activities are related in such a way that they sound like the actions of a particularly aggressive multinational corporation. “The gangs’ trouble here this weekend might have been only a minor setback in their expansion into new territory,” the article states just before quoting Yves Lavigne, a journalist who has written two books on the Hell’s Angels: “‘Increasingly they are looking at Scandinavia, with its open seas and sparsely populated spaces, as good territory for drug smuggling and manufacturing.’” (3)
The Times reporter’s reserved response to the violence in Scandinavia can, in part, be ascribed to the events’ physical distance from the United States. But it is also a reflection of the fact the United States’ law enforcement community has had decades of experience with one–percenter clubs and, rightly or wrongly, treats them as a known commodity. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms offer their best advice to the Swedish police. “‘We exported the problem to them,’” a BATF agent says. “‘Containing it has to be a multinational effort.’” (4) The article also suggests an admission that outlaw clubs should be treated like any other gang, and that they are a fact of life. Rising unemployment and family problems, the Times’ reporter concedes, lead young men into gangs and society’s best response is to draw a line in the sand. A member of Sweden’s Parliament says, “We have to show them we are strong and willing to use our force.’” (5)
The media’s role is to impart knowledge and create an awareness in readers, viewers or listeners of the world they experience as well as those aspects of existence which remain unexperienced, unexplained and hidden. Despite the miles between Sweden and the United States, the Times reporter’s framework of gangs, motorcycle clubs, police standoffs, and Hell’s Angels will be reasonably well understood by American readers. The process of communication begins, as G. Stuart Adam has stated, with imagination, the spontaneous creation of a meaningful image. The outlaw biker myth is that image, an all–purpose, meaning–making device that allows, depending on the context, for fear, humor, drama, inspiration and heroism. The critical element of the process of communication, however, is not just the act of providing information. What must be remembered is that for communication to be successful there must exist a shared system for creating meaning from that information.
The first objective of this investigation was to consider how select genres constructed and used the outlaw biker myth to successfully impart information. The answer is that in mainstream media motorcycle hooligans, one–percenters and outlaw clubs have from the beginning stood as effective examples of what is wrong — and only occasionally right — with society. They have been the not–a–citizen, regularly presented as symbols of sexual, social and criminal deviance. In biker magazines directed at dedicated Harley riders and proponents of an outlaw lifestyle, however, the perspective is reversed and the image instead focuses criticism on society’s deviance. It seems only fitting that as a parting shot at the social mainstream one–percenters coined “citizen” as a derisive term for those who willingly recognized society’s legal and moral boundaries. Hunter Thompson described the Hell’s Angels as a “mockery of public decency,” representatives of the lawlessness society should fear. (6) He was quick to add that no one likes to be mocked.
Good citizens may, indeed, respect authority and dislike being mocked by those who respect nothing. Stepping out of line and ignoring the boundary between law and disorder holds consequences that upstanding people do not hope to experience. Arrest and conviction, even of minor charges, should be an embarrassment and a punishment. But do bikers, created as the not–a–citizen, have no shame? In the 1940s and 1950s, when the country was smug and satisfied in its security, bikers were easy to overlook. Getting into trouble, raising a little hell, was tolerable behavior for youths and young men, especially after the difficult times of World War II. When motorcycle rowdies and ruffians drank too much and got a bit too wild, law enforcement could step in and restore order. Despite riots in Hollister, Porterville and Angel’s Camp, citizens could be confident the young rebels would eventually outgrow their motorcycles, stop sowing their wild oats and take their traditional place in society.
Initially, newspapers and national magazines designed similar frameworks for making sense of the new subculture. They were satisfied simply to identify the outlaw clubs’ oafishness and general dishevelment. A biker’s existence had to be inconsequential since they represented such a small segment of society — just one percent of the motorcycle–riding fraternity. The public could be sure outlaw bikers were unworthy of serious attention and that the police and FBI, ever attentive and responsive, had the situation well in hand. The news media also reaffirmed the value of citizenship by emphasizing the consequences of deviance and non–conformity. Newspapers and magazines not only praised the efforts of “good” bikers, they emphasized the outlaws’ conflicts and disagreements in order to distance them from those who might have offered support. Reports downplayed the occasional positive attribute and instead created dissension and left them social pariahs.
The biker’s marginal existence was an invitation for the news media, in their role as moral entrepreneurs and watchdogs of the public good, to exhibit a negative example. But what was it about motorcyclists and bikers that incited such a response? It might be easier to ask what it was about bikers that “did not” incite moral outrage. From the beginning one–percenters’ manner of dress was provocative. So too was their lack of personal hygiene, their insobriety and the physical menace they cultivated with every swagger. Yet they were more of a threat to themselves than to society as a whole. The existence of such sharks, preying on society’s bottom feeders, was not unique in America. Even the California Attorney General’s report admitted in 1964 that outlaw motorcycle clubs were an aspect of “saloon society,” more violent than other criminals maybe, but nothing new and hardly a threat to a secure civilization.
Thompson and William Murray used the opportunities offered by their publications, Esquire, The Nation and The Saturday Evening Post, to shed light on the Hell’s Angels and the attorney general’s report, augmenting and sometimes dismissing the information that had been gathered and distributed by the state’s law enforcement officials. As the Angels’ notoriety grew, and as other outlaw motorcycle clubs spread their influence across the country in the late 1960s, Thompson and journalists like Rock Conte and photographer Danny Lyon used bikers as ready examples of an anti–social and volatile under class produced by the Great Society. But their explanations were not what people wanted to hear. Despite the status of their publications or their diligence in getting the story, they were whistling into the wind.
National self–confidence evaporated in the 1960s as young people dropped out and civil unrest grew to encompass racial, ethnic, gender and class dissatisfaction. Though others were more critical of the status quo, bikers were tagged by the media and law enforcement agencies alike as a dangerous force that needed to be dealt with quickly and effectively. Abhorred by just about everyone and unprotected by a nation’s collective guilt, the loosely organized working–class loners were easy to single out and occasionally offered law enforcement agencies the opportunity to publicize a hard–won victory over the forces of evil.
Finally, though, their brand of violence and deviance went beyond the ability of law enforcement to contain. Monterey in 1964 was the final straw, but it was not so much that the Hell’s Angels were accused of rape; it was that the accusation only seemed an inconvenience. The outlaws had outgrown their working–class neighborhoods and openly challenged the nation’s moral fiber. Their disrespect for police officers, sheriffs, judges and the entire legal system, combined with an attitude of impunity, was a sure sign of anarchy and the full power of the media’s power as moral entrepreneur came down upon them.
It is also clear that what incited public apoplexy was not just that bikers and outlaw motorcycle clubs presented a tangible danger. Rather it was that they presented an attractive alternative to toeing the line. It was a lifestyle which held out to frustrated working–class men their opportunity to “tune in, turn on and drop out.” Good citizens obeyed the law and supported the economy with hard work, sobriety and capitalism. To do otherwise mocked the middle–class work ethic.
For those men who would never achieve middle–class nirvana, however, the biker lifestyle held out a promise that society could not allow to go unchallenged. How else to explain the vicarious sensual pleasures of junk fiction which made an art of at once despising and leering at the biker lifestyle? How else to explain the popularity of bikers as fall guys and punching bags in junk fiction, movies and comic books where dirtbag bikers are oh–so–easily demolished by everyone’s all–American?
Overlooked by most genres were biker autobiographies which suggested outlaw clubs reflected a growing segment of society, an anti–society more than content to live outside the law. Magnets for lost souls and hardcore criminals alike, they created a semblance of family. The occasional voice of praise that contradicted the dominant image of lowlife biker trash was drowned out, however. To acknowledge that outlaws could flourish by their wits and that their strongarm tactics succeeded, to suggest that they had intentionally entered a criminal existence, was unacceptable. Because acknowledging the outlaw motorcycle clubs’ growing sophistication was galling, some writers and reporters preferred explanations that would salve the nation’s conscience and soothe the fear of anarchy. Outlaw motorcycle clubs were held up as an example of what happens when society goes soft on crime. Biker outlaws could not possibly make themselves; they thrived solely at the sufferance of the misguided majority, which had to crack down and clean house.
The women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s only aggravated a perceived lack of national resolve. It was one more indication that the male prerogative was quickly losing its influence. Opportunistic writers of men’s fiction discovered it could be profitable to soothe male anxiety by providing men a place to daydream. Less concerned with the requirements of citizenship than with the attributes of masculinity, pulp fabulists framed their biker myth by playing up those elements which had disappeared from men’s everyday lives — physical challenge and permissive sexuality.
Magazines like Men, Male and Stag provided readers all the vicarious thrills of an outlaw existence with none of the risk. But even though the fictional bikers inhabited a macho world of easy existence and easy women, it was obviously not an acceptable option for readers. Stories concluded, albeit halfheartedly, with bikers receiving the swift justice they deserved. It was a reminder that life on the margins was never easy and that the reader’s choice of conformist citizenship was most likely the correct one.
Filmmakers also tried to have it both ways, framing the carefree life of bikers as an enjoyable yet temporary diversion for confused and frustrated adolescents who either discovered the path to adulthood or flamed out in glorious deaths. But as real life outlaw clubs grew into organized crime syndicates trafficking in drugs, guns and violence, it became increasingly difficult for popular genres to pick out sympathetic aspects of the biker myth.
Motorcycle clubs were society’s nightmare, a corrupt form of citizenship and a distorted reflection of depraved masculinity. Some genres, most notably men’s adventure fiction and vigilante films, responded to the not–a–citizen with the skilled and self–sufficient hero who provided justice when society would not. For their part true crime writers offered hard–working police officers and private investigators as the true citizen heroes. In any case, the results were almost always the same — like rabid animals, bikers were rounded up and destroyed.
As might be expected, the media used bikers to warn of potential danger and to remind readers and viewers that they lived in an imperfect society which required vigilance and sacrifice. Oddly enough, the intent of biker media has been much the same. Not only did Easyriders define in the 1970s what it meant to be a good citizen of the subculture, it reminded bikers of their duty to challenge and question society’s rules and regulations. The strategy was to take the media image of bikers and outlaw clubs and spin it 180 degrees. Easyriders and the magazines that followed in its wake insisted bikers were the last true patriots. To achieve its goals, Easyriders stressed education, cooperation and community. The emphasis was on freedom and hard–line resistance to the conformity the country impressed on its citizens. Conformity ran counter to the true American spirit, and bikers — outlaw and otherwise — could take pride in their lifestyle, even while police officers rousted them for not wearing helmets and citizens panicked at the sight of burly men on motorcycles.
In time the media would embrace some aspects of the biker lifestyle. But the fact that bikers in the 1990s could be heroes and that they have a different sort of hold on the country’s imagination has less to do with Easyriders and its offspring, or any single genre, than on the evolution of what it means to be a good citizen. What qualifies for media notice changes regularly depending on the synergy between national events, the public’s concerns and fears and the media’s ability to capture and record the news of the moment. In the 1950s a “shook–up” generation of adolescent street punks captured the public’s imagination. Outlaw motorcycle clubs had their moment of fame in the 1960s and 1970s, but then inner–city gangs of Bloods and Crips, harbingers of a new brand of deviance, inspired immediate fear and outrage in the citizenry. In the 1990s militant anti–government groups, which are in reality not all that different from outlaw motorcycle clubs in their emphasis on individual rights and limited government interference, inspired citizen indignation and earned the media’s full attention.
What remains consistent in the media’s job description is that they must translate events in such a way that they make sense to readers and viewers. To accomplish this task the media, both those dedicated to news and those that furnish entertainment, rely on particular myths which provide audiences an applicable and hopefully accurate metaphor for understanding events outside their experience. Initially bikers and one–percenter clubs represented youthful rebels, but in time they took on a menacing aspect as they flouted an increasing number of social and moral boundaries. Instead of benign rebels and outlaws, the media drew upon other frameworks, remaking motorcycle clubs as gangs, crime syndicates and armies. At the same time, however, motorcycles, especially Harley–Davidsons, grew in popularity. Discerning between true deviants and those who wanted to borrow the image to escape into an outlaw fantasy necessitated ever narrower definitions of exactly who qualified as an outlaw.
This analysis thus returns to the question of what can be concluded about the evolution of the biker myth as it appears in news and entertainment media. A critical aspect of this nation’s changing definition of citizenship, at least for this investigation, has been the relative importance of conformity. The necessity of following rules, of adhering to strict legal, religious, moral and ethical codes, of “fitting in,” barely rates notice in discussions of what it means to be an American or a good citizen. Being “one of the guys,” of measuring up to a recognized standard, was for many years society’s basic demand. And since bikers are uniquely qualified non–conformists, they were made to order for the media’s penchant for addressing the various definitions of deviance, and for communicating at any given time just where the fine line is between obeying the law and stepping out of bounds.
In their first 40 years, motorcycle clubs’ criminal deviance dovetailed with their social non–conformity to make them an attractive target for the nation’s moral entrepreneurs. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, society had swung around to the biker’s perspective. A newfound cynicism of the mainstream, combined with lack of respect for authority, had more to do with the country’s growing acceptance of bikers than did changes in bikers themselves. Their success, strength and longevity offer clues as to why the biker myth enjoyed a popular renaissance.
Motorcycle outlaws, who have long cultivated self–interest, independence and a healthy skepticism of bureaucracy and democracy, finally managed to meld with the demands of the age. Even “true” citizens began to accept the suggestion that society had too tight a hold on what we do with our lives. Similarly, the average citizen acknowledged that good could not exist without evil, and that even in the most benevolent and hardworking of organizations there were not–a–citizens, deviants and slackers, who allow us to appreciate true citizenship.
So, does the biker myth serve a purpose if it no longer allows the media to toy with audience expectations of what a biker should be? Is the myth useful if bikers can just as easily be citizens as not–a–citizens? Because genres can provide a cohesive and consistent view of the way things are, and use explicit codes and conventions to speak to a like–minded audience, they are particularly useful in telling certain kinds of stories. This fact suggests that even though the myth may change it will never completely disappear because the story frameworks bikers have been most eloquent in relating involve universal conflicts. As icons of freedom and independence, they reveal the friction between what modern men may desire but do not dare to pursue. As outlaws surviving on the margins of society they remind citizens of the responsibilities they accept in order to gain security. And as unpredictable and potentially violent men of action they expose how easily that security can disappear.
The representation of conflict suggests an answer to the second objective of this research, which is to consider what a genre’s use of the biker myth reveals about its own relationship to social boundaries, deviance and the status quo. One answer is that even though the line between citizen and not–a–citizen is fluid, there is always an inside and an outside. Consequently, there will always be a need for the media to define and inform the populace where they believe the line ought to be.
Most of the genres represented in this research could, to some extent, question society’s definitions of deviance and citizenship. And within each genre a limited spectrum developed between acceptance and denial of what bikers advocated. But what the media put forth as acceptable was generally safe and came at little or no cost to the individual medium. Tom Carson wrote in The Village Voice, for example, that as Fonzie on Happy Days “[Henry] Winkler successfully pabulumized the once menacing figure of the ‘50s hood.” (7) In the end, various aspects of outlaw culture, style and attitude moved into the mainstream only by losing their biker taint.
The relative freedom to accept or deny the one–percenter lifestyle, as expected, reflected a continuum that ran from conservative genres that fully accepted the mandates of the status quo to those that openly mocked them. But while the alignment of media along the continuum remained fairly consistent, what merited attention changed over time, as did the passion of the media’s response. This could be seen as support for Charles Krauthammer’s argument that the media may be guilty of defining deviance up. (8) With time society became inured to some aspects of biker behavior, and it took greater deviance to elicit the same shock in readers and viewers.
Similarly, it could suggest that society has come to accept, or at least overlook, the types of deviance which at one time drew an inordinate level of social opprobrium. It is more likely, however, simply a measure of what it takes to be noticed amid the clamor of news events and an indication of what we consider a true threat to society. The criminal activities of outlaw motorcycle clubs remain deviant, as the New York Times article about Swedish Hell’s Angels and Bandidos chapters suggests, but that is only what we have come to expect. Their brand of rule–breaking, deviant behavior must now be measured against the deviance evident in the rest of society. Though the outlaw clubs’ activities still qualify as “news,” at times they pale in comparison to politicians and corporations that abuse the public trust.
The changing nature of when and how bikers make an impression on the news media is also an indication of how we perceive threats to the status quo. The United States has co–existed with outlaw motorcycle clubs for quite some time and has managed to survive despite the “hooligans,” “hoodlums” and “barbarians.” It is clear that society understands the nature of their deviance, and though we may not agree with all the various illegal and anti–social aspects of the lifestyle, it is obvious the clubs’ criminal activities will not bring the country to its knees. Society also understands that only a small portion of the population will be attracted to the clubs’ challenging lifestyle. It is unlikely there will be a sudden rush to join the outlaws’ ranks. In the end, the media have come to understand that one–percenter clubs no longer merit the same moral indignation they once did and that law enforcement authorities can handle the situation.
Yet the biker myth does represent some important and fundamental conflicts, and its use illustrates its continued applicability to a variety of social issues. Beyond identifying the limits of deviance, the biker myth remains an apt metaphor in the ongoing discussion of social responsibility and masculinity. In a complex world where men feel constrained by the demands of career and family, the mythic biker lifestyle continues to offer frustrated audiences a rare opportunity to escape the mundane. It is no coincidence that the motorcycle industry capitalizes on the potential loss of life and limb by balancing the dangers against the freedom of the open road and the opportunity to seize an electric moment of sensual pleasure. The true outlaw existence illustrates the ongoing conflict between the desire to do as one pleases and the necessity of conformity. The cost of such a lifestyle is high, though, and for many it will reaffirm the relative safety of conformity and citizenship.
The use of the myth, both by individuals and by the media, also affirms Judith Butler’s belief that gender is in large part costume and performance. Masculinity, as reflected in biker style, goes beyond leather and tattoos because the myth is so deeply ingrained in the culture that it lends even those who only borrow the trappings a certain legitimacy. The biker as outlaw is a costume men and women continue to exploit because as a society we relate to individuals who make their own way, the underdog who battles the odds and wins.
An added attraction of the physical accouterments of biker style is in the responses they trigger in an audience: fear, respect and social distance. For outlaw clubs, Raymond Morgan’s description of their “extended macho complex” and their exaggerated response to threats suggests the performative aspects of gender are deeply rooted in the culture. Accomplishment of biker masculinity comes to the individual as precedents which demand certain styles of existence.
Ultimately, the difference between genres is not necessarily in their freedom to test society’s limits but in their ability to test the limits of their audience, which anticipates the third research question: What differences in methods and freedom from the strictures of the status quo exist between media genres? At least part of a genre’s freedom exists in its ability to frame certain individuals as deviant. When alternative metaphors exist for making the day’s events meaningful, the choice of one over another says much about a medium’s relationship to its readers and viewers.
The only genre to consistently favor one–percenter clubs in their disputes with society have been biker magazines such as Easyriders, Biker and Iron Horse. But in many ways Easyriders is no less conservative than the national news magazines that lie at the opposite end of the spectrum. The magazine promotes a biker lifestyle, but the fact that its editorial content has changed substantially over the years suggests that its freedom to espouse such activities as smoking and growing pot and subverting the law is no longer acceptable to a new generation of readers. Consequently, the extent of the magazine’s subversiveness now runs to riding without a helmet, drinking too much and ogling naked women.
Other biker lifestyle magazines like Biker and Outlaw Biker exist solely to maintain the audience of outlaw clubs which is no longer served by Easyriders. But even though the magazines may feature news and events of outlaw clubs, their attempts to extend the definition of what it means to be an outlaw are limited to public relations efforts. Promoting toy runs and fundraising events for “fallen brothers” simply continues the community–building efforts that Easyriders began in the 1970s.
If there exists a publication which challenges readers to redefine what it means to be a biker in an age when Harleys, leather and tattoos are cool, it is Iron Horse. Unlike other publications in its marketing niche, Iron Horse takes chances by including those unconventional bikers who do not fit the myth. It has also taken an unpopular position against the Harley–Davidson Motor Company, challenging readers to question an alliance that has existed since the advent of the motorcycle outlaw.
Newspapers also exhibited some freedom to challenge their readers to re–define the biker myth. Admittedly, recognition came in small increments and only when it was safe, but over time it added up to significant change. Sometimes the challenge was nothing more than a hint or an observation, or possibly the admission that an outlaw clubs’ deviance could be compared to the rule–breaking behavior of politicians and law enforcement personnel.
Why newspapers would have this freedom and other news and non–fiction genres would not comes down to objectivity. The practice of objectivity allows newspapers and reporters room to maneuver in their reporting of conflicts involving motorcycle clubs because they can claim to be holding up a mirror to society and that the readers will eventually come to their own conclusions as to what the reflection reveals.
National news magazines like Time, Life and Newsweek proved to be only slightly less conservative than true–life crime novels like Barry Bowe’s Born to be Wild and Karen Kingsbury’s The Spider and the Snake in their use of outlaw clubs and the evil they represented. Despite the fact they are aimed at vastly different audiences — one a broad–based national readership and the other a tightly focused population of crime junkies — their seeming inability to acknowledge positive aspects of outlaw motorcycle clubs suggests their readers are, for the most part, unprepared to accept shades of gray.
It may also indicate a conscious choice by the publications not to challenge or confuse readers. For these genres to accommodate alternative aspects of the biker myth would require that readers first accept the possibility that the deviance of outlaw clubs is equivalent to the deviance of mainstream institutions. For example, the intent of true–life crime texts is to tell a certain kind of story: the bringing to justice of criminals. To do that one has to praise law enforcement and condemn those who stand in the way of justice.
Audience acceptance of a particular image of bikers seems a less relevant question with junk fiction and men’s adventure fiction. What matters in the end is that the genre’s conventions are met. One–percenters have represented both heroes and villains in masculinist novels and in biker fiction. What is important to note is that the heroes’ stature is less dependent on whether they follow the dictates of the biker myth than on their ability to live within the boundaries of codes they describe for themselves.
The heroes of biker fiction are not that dissimilar from law enforcement heroes when one considers that readers judge them on whether they act consistent with their own rules. For example, even though a traditional description of outlaw clubs stresses brotherhood and duty to the club there are a wealth of stories that praise loners and nomads who conform to no rules other than their own. It is much like the “Dirty Harry” style of police officer who earns the audience’s sympathy despite bending or breaking society’s rules. What matters is that the hero wins on his own terms.
In the end, however, the genres which exhibited the greatest freedom in their use of the biker myth have been in the entertainment media. Even if Fonzie was a thoroughly watered down version of the 50s biker hood, he provided an attractive working class alternative to the white collar Cunninghams. But the popular genres’ freedom does not come without a cost. To hit on just the right formula requires experimentation, which means a film production company, a comic book publisher or a television network may suffer through a number of costly failures before hitting on a formula that captures the audience’s imagination. And considering the fickle nature of audiences, a genre’s lifespan, as was seen with biker films, can be fairly short. A particular genre will continue only as long as the audience is willing to temporarily suspend disbelief and is able to discover something meaningful and enjoyable in its texts.
But experimentation, testing the audience’s limits, can easily cross the line to become exploitation. Filmmakers seemed especially adept at playing on public fear and anxiety and the audience’s appetite for the forbidden. Once they made the front pages of America’s newspapers outlaw motorcycle clubs provided ideal characters for moviemakers who played both sides against the middle. They could feature bikers as icons of confusion and non–conformity for one audience, and for others the living symbol of society’s moral laxity. The result was that the movie–made bikers accentuated public fears of anarchy, made it easy for lawmakers to legislate against bikers’ freedom and legitimized the police crackdown on bikers or all sorts..
Though it has likely always been the case that bikers and one–percenters are both more and less than we would like to believe, the outlaw myth has come to represent more than a one–dimensional stereotype. It can be varied in its message, diverse in its meaning and, depending on the context, open-minded in its presentation of a lifestyle that can be admired, despised, feared or emulated by both men and women. The impact of the myth’s successful integration into society has become all too clear to the biker community. Harleys are not only expensive, but difficult to obtain. A prospective buyer can languish for months on a waiting list. Similarly, fashions pioneered by bikers, like earrings and tattoos, are de rigueur, following in the tradition of denim jeans, leather jackets and heavy–soled boots.
The motorcycle likewise maintains its historic ability to define the outsider and the outlaw. That ability is in part due to the fact that the automobile has become so closely identified with what is considered normal that to do without a car is considered abnormal and, in the United States, un–American. Similarly, in a society that values safety and security, motorcyclists would seem to place little value on their lives, braving dangers and disastrous consequences that are so easily avoided in an automobile. “Hanging it all out” on a fast and seemingly unstable machine leaves the impression bikers are not only fearless but indifferent to the danger.
That image is for many Harley owners the major attraction of motorcycle ownership. And, as the newly successful Harley–Davidson Motor Company discovered, even if the motorcycle is too expensive and the individual too tentative to be a “real biker,” officially–licensed Harley–Davidson T–shirts, baseball caps, coffee mugs and shot glasses available at the mall boutique will lend anyone a hint of deviance.
Harley faithful, hardcore bikers in particular, feel abandoned by the company, however. Despite their attempts to perfect and protect the American hog, the Harley–Davidson Motor Company turned its back on the biker faithful, barring individuals and companies from using “hog” and “apehanger,” terms of endearment originated by bikers. It has closed Harley dealerships and garages that have failed to cater to its new up–scale clientele.
Even more egregiously, in 1996 it licensed the Franklin Mint to sell “The Ultimate Chopper,” a replica of Captain America, Peter Fonda’s red, white and blue chopper from Easy Rider. The advertisement prods the reader to take home an icon, a piece of Americana: “The awesome chopper that became the symbol of freedom. . . . The definitive chopper. Fast, sleek and powerful. Born to be wild! Now, it’s born again — to be yours.” (9) A year earlier the creator of pricey knick–knacks had offered collectors a replica of a Harley Electra–Glide, the “undisputed King of the Highway,” (10) but marketing a piece of history like Captain America at once legitimated and denigrated the biker lifestyle and showed how far it had come from the advent of the Hell’s Angels and the Lynch Report.
Harley–Davidson, guilty of profiting from the one–percenter image while simultaneously denying its debt to the outlaw few, was not alone in exploiting the biker myth. Other companies have likewise cashed in on the image now that it has gained respectability with a majority of the buying public. The voiceover in a Saturn commercial draws attention to a pack of bikers on a desert highway: “They’re out there. They’re not like most of us. There’s a passion that brings them together, unites them — like a family. Some people would even call them rebels.” (11) What do bikers have to do with automobiles? The connection viewers are supposed to draw from the advertisement is that bikers and Saturn owners share a passion for fine engineering. We are to believe they also share a rebellious spirit, that neither one cares what others think of them. They do not conform; they do what they believe is right. It seems the one–percenters’ rebellion and brotherhood were handed down to middle–aged yuppie car buyers.
Exactly how audiences responded to the Saturn commercial or any other media message is beyond the scope of this investigation. But it is safe to assume the various genres included in this analysis did, in a span of 50 years, affect in various and important ways this country’s perception of motorcyclists and bikers. When they were an oddity and few people had direct experience of one–percenter clubs the media were the public’s sole source of information about them and there was little to measure their accuracy against. But with time and repetition the framework of the media–created myth grew to color audience perceptions of deviance, citizenship and masculinity.
Media test the limits of acceptability, suggesting how the world “ought to be” and measuring our acceptance of the message. Working within the conventions of particular genres, certain texts can provide a cohesive and consistent view of the way things are, using their own vocabulary, myth and image to speak to a like–minded audience. The time and effort of observing and analyzing one aspect of media behavior brings to light important elements which define and determine our understanding of deviance and of social change. What is interesting is not so much how an image or myth evolves, but how society and its priorities change and over time modify our perception of what is valuable in the myth itself. Due to its appeal and broad utility, we can expect the biker myth to be regularly hauled out by news reporters, advertising copywriters, press agents and movie producers for public inspection, a familiar example of the good and evil that inhabit human nature.
Bibliography
Source Material
1. Herb Mallette, Shotgun Mary #1, Antarctic Press, September 1995.
2. Youssef M. Ibrahim, “Sweden’s Courteous Police Spoil a Hell’s Angels Party,” New York Times, 3 March 1997 A1.
3. Ibid., A1.
4. Ibid., A6
5. Ibid., A6.
6. Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (New York: Ballantine, 1967), 149.
7. Tom Carson, “Bum’s Rush,” The Village Voice, 8 March 1994, 44.
8. Charles Krauthammer, “Defining Deviance Up,” The New Republic, 22 November 1993, 20–25.
9. “The ultimate chopper,” (advertisement) Parade Magazine, 10 November 1996, 11. Bikers have responded with even greater derision to Easyriders’ creation, as part of The Hamilton Collection, a collector’s plate commemorating “The Brotherhood of Biking.” Only $29.95, one plate per collector.
10. “The undisputed king of the highway,” (advertising insert) Playboy Magazine, November 1995.
11. “They’re out there,” (television advertisement) Saturn Motor Company, 1996.